scavanged pagermotors from toy car

Here is a quick walk-through on how to get your hands on a really cheap alternative to the GM10s. The motors you get here are not even nearly as cool as the GM10s, but you don't feel bad when you fry them.

First. Go to somewhere like ebay and buy one of these stupid stunt cars. Here's where I got them. I bought two pairs of stuntcars. That ended up at $9 plus shipping for four cars, each containing 2 motors with an attached gearbox.

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The product info on the box it came in alone is worth it, here's a few examples:

Super Wheelies, Spinssttom removes the top

sg

Just tear of one front wheel to remove entire front assembly

Use a small screwdriver to pry loose the charger contact

Tear loose the electronics, it's just hot-glued in place.

Then remove 3 screws to get the rear wheels and motor.

Here's a picture of the entire thing take apart. Screwdrivers and remote control gives an idea of scale.

Here's the useful parts at a glance.

Some light weight plastic wheels with axles

a set of contacts

one small pager motor with gears and through running axle

one small pager motor with gears and output plastic shaft

a glow lamp

In addition I got a handfull of screws, a retractable antenna, and I guess there's at least four push buttons and some LEDs in the remote controll as well. Guess I could have put a couple of batteries in there and given the vehicle a spin before taking it apart. But, why bother with playing when there's screwing to be done, right? <nudge, nudge>

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I didn't bother trying it before I took the philips screwdriver to it..

But, I've seen them before, and I'll try to explain why I think they are shite...

The rear wheels are on a commmon axle, so if there's power to the main motor, the vehicle will go straight forward or backward. To turn you have to stop, then engage the front wheel spinning. Since the vehicle is very light and the front spins at a ridiculous speed, one of the wheels will touch the ground and nudge the car slightly sideways. Then the front will perform 2-3 rotations before one of the front wheels will bounce at the ground and nudge the vehicle further sideways. The small wheels on the roof are to prevent the vehicle from falling over every time it does a wheelie. If it stops in the upward pointing position, you have to back it up fast to get it to fall back down on the front wheels. If the front spins while the vehicle is in motion the unpredictability is guarantied. If the front stops spinning in anything but perfectly flush with the ground, the vehicle will continiue on only three wheels, except sometimes the front will gradually level out due to vibrations, but that never happens if it ends up at a 90 degrees angle.

I think the size will certainly prevent any 28X board from being installed. There wont be room for that many sensors either, you could fit one IR distance sensor, but you'd have to skip the servo to mound it on... And I can't think of any program that can fit on a small enough chip, that could take care of all the uncertainties (e.g. how many rotations do I have to spin before I've done 90 degrees, how many wheels are in contact with the tabletop now etc)

But, I've been wrong before, so I'm willing to post a challenge if someone is up for it?!?

Uhm this tells me something about how overpriced is the stuff we buy around.. I know the website sells small quantities and have shipping and all, but the difference with this mass produced products is huge